are just a few of the things the casino owners of downtown Las Vegas decided they did not want to deal with anymore, and so in 1995 they ponied up some major moolah for something called the Fremont Street Experience. Fremont Street was already the brightest street in the world--with so much neon you could read the fine print in a Don King contract at 4 a.m.--but they made it even brighter when they erected a four-block-long canopy, a sort of vaulted marquee, that was impressive even by the standards of Las Vegas neon. Every hour or so they switch off  the casino lights and switch on the canopy and every tourist neck cranes upwards as spaceships and prehistoric fish and other odd animated symbols rush up and down the street while a blaring fanfare gooses the energy level a few notches.

Personally I can't stand the sucker.

Whenever it comes on I duck into the Girls of Glitter Gulch topless bar, where my friends Big Mike and Jimbo will share my scorn, pour me a free vodka, and spit out a few well chosen expletives.

"Cartoons," says Jim with disgust. "They're running cartoons on Fremont Street."

Big Mike--a professional weight-lifter and the club's senior manager--quickly recruits two or three of his hottest dancers and tells them to go outside, because as soon as the eight-minute show ends there will be disoriented gawkers looking for their next thrill.

"Is that what people come to Las Vegas for?" continues Jim, co-owner of the bar as well as two Fremont Street slot casinos, Le Bayou and Mermaids. "That"--Jim points to a blonde in a dental-floss thong wrapping herself around a firepole--"is what people come to Las Vegas for."

Girls of Glitter Gulch, a cozy little strip joint celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, has become a symbol of a dysfunctional Vegas conflicted about its past and future. The other casino owners would like GGG to go away, not only because it distracts people from gambling but because the owners don't pay membership dues to finance the Fremont Street Experience. The casinos have gone so far as to call it a "leach" business.

"No one wants Glitter Gulch here," says Big Mike. "We know that. But we don't care because we're part of what old Las Vegas is about. For years, this city cultivated an adult atmosphere--sex and alcohol and gambling. There's nothing for a family here. One reason people come down here now is a nostalgia-type thing. They like Binions Horseshoe, and the small Jackie Gaughan casinos, and the Boyd Group places. They've lost a little bit, but it's the closest to the old Vegas you'll find."

It's ironic, really, that the promotion created to save the old Vegas is what will probably kill it. The Fremont Street Experience has already entombed those four blocks, so that there's no real incentive for anyone to build under the canopy, and even less incentive for anyone to build beyond the canopy. More important, it hasn't really worked. In 1999 downtown gaming revenues declined for the seventh straight year--and that was a year when revenues on the Strip were up 13.6 per cent.

Even more ironic is that downtown was always known for its tough-as-nails pistol-toting casino owners who could never be told what to do. "But we decided we needed a Mirage volcano of our own," says Mike Brandenburg, co-owner of the Golden Gate Casino, across Fremont Street from Girls of Glitter Gulch. And so the owners, after years of fierce independence, actually tried to copy the Strip.

By deciding to emulate the glitzy-but-sterile Strip hotels, the downtown owners chased away the seedy underbelly that used to be part of Fremont Street's charm. The very name "Glitter Gulch" comes from the 19th century, when every western mining town had its "glitter gulch" area of saloons, brothels, poker rooms, and prizefight rings. The building housing Girls of Glitter Gulch today was originally a burlesque theater called Reed's Cabaret. When burlesque died it was turned into a slots casino called Sassy Sally's, next door to the famous Golden Goose, and then ten years ago the owners tore out a wall, linked the two slots joints, and--voila!--Girls of Glitter Gulch.

"The casinos were doing all right," says Mike, "but we wanted something new and wild. And we had instant success. At that time the street was still open, and we had constant cab traffic, limos pulling up to the door. We had to hire a doorman the first two or three years, a guy just opening doors on the limos. We were real busy."

The giant neon signs were a beloved part of the street, though, and so Sassy Sally and the Golden Goose remained. Sassy Sally is a seated neon cowgirl in a flouncy dress with a shapely leg kicking out over the street, and to her right is a goofy- looking big-billed goose wearing a cowboy hat and holding a golden egg in his right hand (or is it foot? or wing?). Sassy Sally underwent a name change to "Vegas Vicky" in a sort of tribute to the most famous sign in Las Vegas, "Vegas Vic," which still stands a half block away over the old Pioneer Club, now closed and converted into a souvenir shop. Vegas Vic is the plaid-shirted cowboy with his ankles crossed and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth (how's that for Old Las Vegas?), waving his welcome to the cars that once poured down Fremont Street from the Boulder Highway.

"We had a marriage ceremony when we made the change," says Big Mike proudly. "Vegas Vicky actually married Vegas Vic."

But when construction began on the Fremont Street Experience in 1994, "it killed our business," says Big Mike. The cabs and high-roller limousines could no longer drive up to the door of the club, and Girls of Glitter Gulch was stuck with walk-by traffic only. "The only way it helped us is that a lot of girls like to work here because walk-bys are tourists who usually don't come back. They're not going to run into them at the supermarket."

The biggest week of the year for Girls of Glitter Gulch is the Comdex computer convention in the fall--which is odd because the gambling hosts on the Strip always complain that the computer industry doesn't gamble. (The dot-com millionaires of the nineties were the first new class of millionaires in 70 years that did not foster a high-roller culture. By contrast, the oilmen who became millionaires after the East Texas oil field came in in the thirties not only patronized Vegas heavily but ended up owning much of it.)

"All I know," says Big Mike, "is that we love Comdex. Those guys might be living three or four guys in a room, and they might be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and they might not gamble at all, but they will come here and spend money on dances."

Despite its reputation among the other casinos, the Las Vegas Police regard Girls of Glitter Gulch as the cleanest topless bar in the city. "We follow the law right down the line," says Big Mike, "and I fire the girls who don't listen. You can probably go to any other club in town and pay a little extra and have more 'fun'"--here he raises his eyebrows a little--"than you can have here. But we can't afford trouble. The City Council is on a high moral standards kick right now. They've changed the zoning to restrict them so that there are no areas left in town where a new club is legal. And the police are right here."

About a hundred dancers work at Girls of Glitter Gulch on any given day. Each girl pays $50 to the club but takes home all of her tip money, which can easily top $1000 for the girls who know how to work the room. The right wardrobe makes a big difference, too. "I made 80 dollars the other night," says a dark Latin girl with flashing eyes. "The next night I wore this"--and she poses in her cleavage-enhancing form-fitting tube dress--"and I made eight hundred."

Big Mike and Jimbo know the topless business inside out--I've seen guys ejected from the bar without even realizing it until they were outside--but they still don't like people cramping their style.

"Fremont Street Experience?" sniffs Mike. "Did you see what they had last weekend? They had a bunch of lame bands out there. They roped everything off and charged twenty bucks! To see Chaka Khan! What a fiasco."

No, it's not the same Fremont Street where casino owner Benny Binion once pulled a gun on casino owner Sam Boyd--and then the next day they had lunch together. It's changed forever.

"But what can you do?" says Jim. "You want another drink?"
*
© Copyright 2001 United Press International and Joe Bob Briggs